This application relates to retrieving recursive unique user metrics in real time, such as instantly or within a period of time with no significant delays. This application also relates to techniques for providing such metrics in real time using sketches.
Recursive unique user metrics can include unique user metrics on objects that have recursive associations with other objects. For example, recursive unique user metrics can include recursive unique user metrics of a node in a hierarchy. For example, recursive unique user metrics can include recursive unique user metrics of a node in an online taxonomy, such as an online content taxonomy. An online content taxonomy may include nodes that represent respective content categories. For example, a recursive unique user metric for a node representing winter sports may include an amount of unique users querying winter sports and other categories descending from winter sports in an online content taxonomy, such as the categories of skiing and skating.
Obtaining recursive unique user metrics may be very complex and may require a great amount of lookups within layers of data logs. The complexity becomes even greater with an increased width and/or a height of a hierarchy of data. For example, some content providers and Internet services may have content hierarchies including over ten levels and hundreds of thousands of nodes. Although, the task of providing recursive unique user metrics seems daunting with such numbers, it can be done with enough time and resources.